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Topic: First no-sparge batch (Read 1811 times)

I think that viscosity does have somewhat of an effect. I often direct fire step mash on my stove with grain bills of up to 20 pounds. While adding heat to the mash I am constantly stirring gently to avoid scorching. I observed that as the temp steps move up it get easier to stir so I would rather think that the higher mash out temp does aid in lautering. I could be wrong though.

I've seen a bump in efficiency with a mashout, but it comes with a consequence of slightly increased FG. My theory is that the mashout stimulates a brief burst of alpha amylase activity as the temp comes up through its optimum range.

As for complete conversion, I guess I'm not crushing quite fine enough or something because I don't typically get results that are consistent with 100% conversion. Even when I mash for 120min it doesn't seem like I get 100%, I don't know if you can expect that from a mash that favors beta amylase.